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Ratan Tata's successor Cyrus Mistry is riding a generational transformation in the Rs 4,00,000-crore Tata Group. While Mistry's global experience and outlook will help him manage the transnational ambitions of the group, in many ways, his ascension is a mirror image of the time Ratan Tata stepped up to the plate after JRD Tata.

Then Ratan Tata had to assimilate a homogenous loose confederation of 80 odd disparate companies with high profile no-nonsense chairmen. For the architectural grad from Cornell, the confederacy was a culture shock. Disparate businesses headed by powerful satraps rooted in the old Tata work ethic. From Darbari Seth to Ajit Baburao Kerkar to Russi Mody, the empire was littered with tell tale signs of the past.

File photo: Ratan Tata with JRD Tata.

Ratan Naval Tata won his spurs in the Tatas by systematically demolishing the old guard with smart pincer moves, brooking no interference.

Tough and yet decisive, Tata always appeared in complete control. With one eye on profitability and the other on regeneration of value, RNT, as he is known in Bombay House, chose to walk the path alone.

By making astute and yet tough strategic choices, he has grown the group 13 times in the last 21 years. Pertinently, his career as the helmsman of the Tata Group has run parallel to the Indian reforms story. Shedding dogmas, satraps, inhibitions and by pursuing growth imperatives, he has made a huge success of the group by financially reengineering it. Leveraging the intrinsic strength and value of TCS, Tata Steel and Tata Motors and divesting Tata Oil Mills and Lakme, he has sallied forth.

Ratan Tata has metamorphosed his group by adopting a radical acquisitive strategy, one of rapid brown field expansion which has allowed the group to acquire size, scale and more than anything else, mass. A flurry of acquisitions has meant that a company with a pre-dominantly Indian soul has transformed into a transnational giant. The vagaries of global slowdowns and meltdown may have impaired its recent performance levels, but the sheer size of the behemoth is unmistakable.

While Ratan Tata leaves the management of these vicissitudes to his chosen heir Cyrus Mistry, his own legacy is one that will catapult him into the pantheon of business and industry titans.

Ratan Tata's new office is housed on the second floor of Elphinstone Building in Mumbai. Photo by Bhaskar Paul

While Ratan Tata has gone on to change the look, feel, image and perception of the Tata Group at all levels, he has also ushered in a spanking new paradigm as far as the generational change is concerned.

Twenty years ago, one couldn't imagine that the age profile of Tata bosses will be what it is now. Sample this: Cyrus himself is 44; N. Chandrasekaran, handpicked by RNT himself to head TCS - is 49; R. Mukundan, who heads Tata Chemicals, is 46; Mukund Rajan, formerly executive assistant to RNT, is head of Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) in his mid-forties; N. Srinath, another former EA to RNT, helms Tata Communications at 49; Brotin Banerjee became CEO of Tata Housing at 35.

Ratan Tata's new residence in Colaba. Photo by Bhaskar Paul

The understated Mistry, a thinker who believes in deep detailing, is very balanced in his approach while being unemotional and very focused. He takes over at a time when 66 per cent of all Tata revenues are from international operations.

Strangely, in a company that people reckon is run by geriatrics, the last three chairmen - JRD Tata was 34 when he took over from Nowroji Saklatwala, Ratan Tata himself was 54 and now Mistry is 44.

Jamshed Irani, Tata Steel head in the past and Tata Sons board member, feels that there are many similarities between RNT and Mistry.

He says: "When Mr Tata took over, global revenues were only 10 per cent. Tatas have scaled up under Mr Tata's outward looking strategy. Ratan Tata came at the very end of the last vestiges of the licence permit raj, but he slowly reinvented the group by embedding his own thought processes with the group's core values. He would always tell us - think big, take bold decisions and plan for profits. See where the group is now."

Competence and continuity have been the guiding lights of this transition, just as they were when RNT took over from Jeh.

Thirty one listed companies dot the topography of this salt to automobile conglomerate. Geographies never bothered RNT.